In the organizer's words:

Since the mid-1960s, Renate Bertlmann's radical, ironic and provocative works have subverted social attributions and stereotypes surrounding gender and power structures. They address both the female body as contested terrain and the ambivalences of pleasure and pain, desire and vulnerability, omnipotence and resistance.

The exhibition "Im Visier" brings together works (from 2004 to 2025) that are characterized by a remarkable diversity and link themes such as suffering or deprivation of liberty with strongly "camp"-like materials. Crime scene scenes (such as "Autumn", 2025), laying-out room or mourning room (such as "Wedding Night", 2025), self-defense accessories or camouflaged weapons (such as "Knife Backpack: Le Voyage", 2025 or "Fuck off", 2004)... Renate Bertlmann exhibits objects arranged in display cases, as in ethnological museums, and makes use of visual worlds that are considered kitsch and obscene. This exaggerated visual language represents a powerful vector of irony for the artist - it irritates, destabilizes and at the same time opens a door to the absurd and grotesque; an artistic strategy of uncertainty that Bertlmann has always pursued. She targets socio-cultural gender hierarchies and questions what is considered "appropriate" or "acceptable".

Special thanks to Silvia Steinek and Carol Tachdijan, Galerie Silvia Steinek, Vienna

Vernissage I 23 JANUARY 2026

5 pm | Film screening
Late Triumph -Renate Bertlmann
by Susanne Riegler

6 pm | Opening
Renate Bertlmann "In the sights"
with an introduction by Christina Végh, Director Kunsthalle Bielefeld